Wassail / Matt Mizenko
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen (the term is to be histoically applied),
Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to Serendipity. If you are reading this for the first time, the loose premise of these musings can be found in the provenance email from August 2023. That’s just 30 years since the end of Covid.
In short, it is a meandering musing. It grips readers through the unifying belief that perhaps if they keep reading, this will get better, have a point, or that I won’t have tricked them again into wasting another four minutes this month.
Each January, I try to take stock of the previous year and make grand personal plans for the upcoming year. I write everything down on a fresh notebook organized into sections, and I even draw little check boxes next to the items I will accomplish. Then I put this into my desk drawer, forget about it for 12 months, and then throw it in the trash the following January.
I have tried everything, apps, planners, PM software, timeboxing, and even shadow boxing - Guy Pearce in Memento looks like he has a photographic memory compared to me. The most representative metaphor of my life planning is as the philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.”
This has been my ritual for years, but this year, I have a new plan. Instead of avoiding being punched in the face, I am abandoning biological intelligence and going to put my success in the hands of artificial intelligence. Burt, my trusty AI assistant, never forgets and is highly organized.
I wrote down six pages of things that I either wanted to achieve, wanted to change, or wanted to eliminate on a piece of paper, and then methodically and painfully typed it in and hit enter. Burt replied, “This is impossible; in fact, I am surprised that you stayed focused long enough to type up six pages”.
The more I thought about it, this was my first achievement of 2026.
I hadn't done this since I was a kid at the birth of the PC. Remember when we would write things on paper and then ‘type them up’?
For group accountability, I am sharing a couple of my “medium difficulty” goals so that by the end of the year I move closer to the new Dos Equis poster child.
Skydive and scuba dive in the same day, like I am a Navy SEAL
Get a 500-day Duolingo streak in one year in a new language
Ride a horse from Arizona to Montana using only my sweat as bug repellent
Lower my blood pressure using meditation alone, from hypertension stage 2 to peak Lance Armstrong Tour de France era
Finally put pen to paper and plan for my dream of owning the world’s first international potato chip museum
Stay tuned for the mid-year update, I am sure they will all be checked off.
Moving on.
Moving on.
All of this planning aside, serendipity has a way of ignoring our intentions. I have concluded that the most serendipitous moment of 2025 came on December 11, when many of the people I write about met in person in NYC for a gathering of like-minded, kind, and generous people. The relationships formed that day will probably fuel this newsletter’s serendipitous moment for years to come.
Moving on, on.
Without further ado, I would like to introduce someone incredibly fascinating and definitely worth knowing, someone who very much did not want me to write about them. So at the last minute, I drafted in Matt Mizenko.
Matt Mizenko
Matt is the General Manager of Nomorobo, which, quite frankly, should be mandatory software for modern life as it stops your phone from getting all those pesky spam calls and texts. Despite his wealth of knowledge and expertise around telecommunications, he is also a Renaissance man, and enjoys playing the bass guitar, riding horses, and, unfortunately, watching the Gunners top the league this year.
He is energetic (I think it's a New Jersey thing), kind, and has a rare American sense of humor the British can tolerate. Whether you want to geek out about international SIM card mafia operations, great music, or the nuances of football, Matt is always an eventful call.
You can connect with Matt here.
You can get the app here.
Or you can learn all about spam and watch Matt educate the incredibly stupid news anchors from around the country here.
I am so grateful for everyone who takes the time to read this letter. It takes me hours of painstaking deliberation each month to try and help just one person in my network. The ROI is negative $1 million a month. But all the notes and all the promises of meaningful connections make it worth it.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Happy New Year.